Content by Keyword: Families with Children

This section considers, first, which housing policies controlled at the Federal, state, and local levels would help provide mainstream subsidized rental housing for parents who have become homeless. Then, the implications of the information provided in this chapter for developing a typology of homeless families are discussed.

Housing assistance is not an entitlement, and there is a very large gap between the number of families who need subsidies for affordable rental housing and the number of available subsidies. This puts families attempting to leave homelessness for mainstream subsidized permanent housing in direct competition with families who are housed but who hav

In Exhibit 2 a very rough estimate was presented that there were 22,000 families with children who need to leave homelessness for permanent supportive housing at a point in time in 1996. This may be an overestimate of the number of permanent supportive housing units needed for families, as it may underestimate the ability of parents to live in mai

The assisted and affordable housing programs have almost 3.5 million units of subsidized rental housing large enough for families with children, and it is likely that about 720,000 million of these units turn over each year ( Exhibit 6 ). By comparison, there are only 55,000 parents who are homeless at a point in time who need mainstream subsidize

There is less information about the rate at which HOME and LIHTC units turn over than there is about the assisted housing programs. It is likely that affordable housing units turn over at a more rapid rate than assisted housing units because they are less likely to represent a unique opportunity for the households occupying them to live in units t

Since 1990, most of the growth in rental housing subsidy programs has been in affordable housing rather than assisted housing. The LIHTC was enacted in 1987 and, as of 2004, had produced about 1.2 million units of rental housing. In other words, the program is about the same size as the public housing program, and unlike public housing it contin

Assisted housing programs are examined first, which, of the two groups of programs, is the more likely to be usable by parents who have become homeless and are seeking permanent housing. Because assisted housing programs charge rent on the basis of actual income, however low, any family exiting homelessness should be able to afford to live in an a

What housing resources are available to provide mainstream permanent housing for homeless families? This section discusses the Federal programs that provide subsidized rental housing to low-income families and individuals. To understand the potential of each of these programs for serving families leaving homelessness, it is important to distinguis

An estimate based on the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) is that in 1996 there were 60,860 families with children currently experiencing homelessness. 1 , 2 Another 101,840 homeless adults were parents of children under the age of 18 whose children do not live with them.

Achieving stability in permanent housing is considered by many to be the overriding goal of the system of services for people who are homeless. Providers of service may have other important objectives tailored to the particular needs of their client population and associated with helping people to become as self-reliant as possible through employm

Housing history of the child Duration of current episode of homelessness for the child
New or recurrent homelessness for the child
Housing instability of the child prior to homelessness
With parent(s) in shelters or separated from parent(s)
History of foster care
Child’s appraisal of homeless situation
Traumatic history of the

Precipitating factor Natural disaster or condemned housing
Eviction by landlord or by foreclosure for lack of payment
Immediate post-hospitalization loss of housing
Immediate post-release from jail inability to find housing
Loss of job
Gradually increasing financial distress
In and out of homelessness with short turnaround (less tha

Demographics Single or two-parent family
Number of children
Age of children (infants, pre-school, school, adolescents)
Pregnancy
Age of parents
Social capital Education of parents
Parenting ability of parents
Work skills and habits
Helpful informal network
Prison/jail record
Illegal alien
History of institutionalizati

Area housing resource indicators: State or local eviction prevention policies
Title 8 vouchers
Waiting time for 202 or other public housing
Local area occupancy ratio of rental housing
Local ratio of low income housing rent to minimum wage
Local availability of SRO housing
Local availability of housing subsidies: hotel rooms
Local

Data on housing and shelters Low income housing data. The National Low Income Housing Coalition provides a report initiated by Dolbeare Cushing and updated every year or few years on the cost of rental housing at a very disaggregated level (town or county), and relates it to wages and other income. These data are essential to the understand

Conceptual category
Operational category
Sub-Category
Description
Roofless
Living in a public space (no abode)
Stay in a night shelter and/or forced to spend several hours a day in a public space
1.1
1.2
2.1
2.2
2.3
Sleeping Rough
Contacted by outreach services

Readily available data sources on homeless families include four longitudinal studies (Shinn et al., 1998; Bassuk et al., 1998; Rog and Guttman, 1997; SAMHSA, 2004), two in a single city (New York and Washington, DC, respectively) and two in several sites. There is also one cross-sectional study (Burt et al., 1999). The two studies in a single cit

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